Fat Slut

So I’d been meaning to write about this for a while, but I didn’t because I’m a space case who needs a to-do list to remind her to shower these days. But this post at Fatshionista by the very clever Lesley made me actually click over to WordPress. So.

I am not a huge fan of having photographs taken of myself. I think this is because I look larger than I do in the mirror, what with three dimensions being flattened to two. And most pictures of me recently have been taken at the middle or end of shenanigans with friends, when I am either drunk or greasy from lack of sleep. Not the most attractive state for anybody.

My friend Kait is a photographer and has recently been revamping/restarting her business, with hopes of getting it off the ground soon. And she was looking for test models. And because I have loads of free time I volunteered. The actual modeling was sort of hilarious because it was about eighteen degrees out and we both kept slipping in the snow.

When she uploaded the pictures, though, I was floored. I actually looked… pretty. Holy crap. It was almost magical, seeing myself as the subject and attention of a gaze that made me look beautiful instead of some vaguely sweaty blob in yesterday’s shirt. And there’s a lot to be said about the problems of valuing one’s appearance and blah blah male gaze, but… this was pretty novel for me, and I can’t say I hated it.

It’s really hard to move more when it’s January in New England. Last week we had a storm that didn’t match up to the monumental ice storm before Christmas, but there was a lot of rain and light slush that all froze solid. The bottom of our driveway is a sheet of ice. I’ve fallen down twice just taking the dog out to pee, once on my hands and once (really hard) on my ass. And on New Year’s Eve I managed to wrench my bad ankle pretty badly in the snow because I couldn’t see where the sidewalk ended. So I haven’t been getting out much; I even canceled a counseling appointment because I would have basically had to ice skate over there.

In line with the resolution I was thinking of getting some exercise programs after a friend recommended Yoga Booty Ballet to me. And then I could move without risking a broken neck. I went to a community where I download movies. (HOMG YES I AM EVIL let’s get past that right now.) And there’s an offshoot community for just exercise videos, which is cool. Less cool: all the dieting and weight-loss talk. They’re having a “Twenty Pounds More Fabulous By Easter” challenge, which freaks me right the fuck out because more fabulous? Bitches, I am plenty fucking fabulous at 270.

- Which, tangent: I ended up getting officially weighed for the first time in a really long time last month. Mom hooked me up with her doctor’s office so I could get a refill prescription on my meds, and they didn’t have a file and they started one. Which meant weighing and age and blood pressure but, oddly, not my height. And it was a digital readout rather than the clanky old scales with the big metal things they move around, which was sort of cool. And now I have an official semi-recent number: 270. Fine by me, I guess. THE OTHER COOL THING is that I got my blood pressure checked and according to the nurse it was fine and dandy. That’s great, because the last time I had it checked it was rather high… but I was at school and stressed the fuck out over my entire life falling apart and living off terrible processed food. Score one for living at home, I guess. And now back to our story.

Anyway, I have a hard time reading all this weight-loss stuff as I go through looking for videos. I’ve been allying myself with fat acceptance (or Fat Acceptance if we wanna call it a movement) for over a year now, since I sent in my picture to the Shapely Prose BMI Project. And yet I still have thoughts of “wow I look so fat,” “life sure would be better if I weren’t so fat.” I think a lot less about dieting but I still have recurrent thoughts about magically being thinner. I don’t know if these videos are going to be all about the weight loss rather than just exercise: does it matter if my sculpted buns and ripping abs are under a nice cushiony layer of fat? Will I be able to get through these without wanting to scream and then go eat a bowl of cookie dough? We’ll see. If this doesn’t work I’m stealing my sister’s DDR mat and going to town with those.

Crap, I’m gonna have to buy a new sports bra.

And again I disappeared. This time it was applying to graduate schools. I’m about to submit application number eight, and number nine will get done sometime this weekend. Man alive do I hate writing application essays. Anyway, here’s something I’m copying from my LJ:

So I’m only making one resolution and it’s pretty blah: to move more. I mean, I do need to physically move more. I don’t think I’ve had a good solid bout of exercise in the past two years, just frantic sprints and slow walks. So movement, in some shape or form. I don’t give a shit about losing weight but I hate how hard it is to just do shit now, how out of breath I am. Moving. At any pace, just… moving. But I mean it in a broader sense too. I didn’t travel this year, when I love doing it so much. I didn’t really do much of anything. I came home from school and hid in my room for five months. I need to move forward, I want to go places, I want to explore and move beyond this life where the most exciting thing that happens is I maybe leave the house and see someone I’m not related to. It’s been five months of calcification and hibernation and slowly creeping despair and I am sick of it. I am tired of being a burden to my parents and to myself. Moving onward and outward. Let’s do this.

Yeah. Happy new year, folks. This isn’t going to turn into a diet-and-exercise blog because I would probably swiftly descend into the hell of binge eating again, which is no fun for anybody. I just… want to not feel so crappy about my life, and I think getting out of my desk chair and out of my room will help. Vitamin D and fresh air and all that shit. If nothing else the dog will benefit, right?